


Pride

by rainbowpiranha



Series: At The End of the Day [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Beyond the Sea, Introspection, Pride, Season01Episode12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowpiranha/pseuds/rainbowpiranha
Summary: A short introspective piece: Scully’s train of thought as she’s sitting with Mulder in his hospital bed.





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Set after the end of “Beyond the Sea” (Season 1, Episode 12) in which Scully’s father dies, and Mulder and Scully deal with Boggs, a supposed psychic and serial killer.

Scully scooted back so she was seated more on the hospital bed next to Mulder. She had come to visit him multiple times every day to keep him updated on the case, but this time was different. As of two minutes ago exactly, Boggs was facing execution and would no longer be a threat to anyone. Lucas had fallen to his death in the brewery, and the two kidnapped teenagers were recovering and would return home soon. Everything should have been back to normal.

But it wasn’t.

She had answered truthfully when Mulder asked her why she didn’t want to believe when faced with the evidence—she was scared. But she wasn’t necessarily scared of Boggs and his psychic ability. Instead, she was scared of receiving a message from her father that confirmed her worst fears.

Sure, as a Navy Captain he had a certain air about him that lead to an emotionally detached parenting style, but she always knew he loved her. She knew that in the nicknames they had for each other and through the stories they shared. She saw his love in the way that he expected so much from her, and how he gave her so much in return. 

But she also knew that she had disappointed both of her parents when she opted to work for the FBI instead of practicing medicine, and her father was quick to tell her that.

And it’s not like Scully dropped out of med school and never got an education. She was a doctor by degree, she continued to work within the medical field through performing autopsies, and she used her extensive medical knowledge to help her solve cases. She wanted to keep some aspect of her medical training involved at every stage of her career because she always wanted to help people, and she was teaching future agents how to properly use autopsy data in their cases.

To Scully, using her medical knowledge to help solve crimes while wielding a gun and running through city streets in heels was just more exciting than working at a family clinic, that’s all. 

Scully hadn’t even told her parents about working with The X-Files. They knew she got reassigned at work, and that was it. Part of her kept the nature of her work a secret from her parents because she knew they would worry about her safety. By nature, being an FBI agent was dangerous. But, being an FBI agent that dealt with the most outlandish, and potentially paranormal and otherworldly, perpetrators was even more dangerous.

Perhaps she kept the details of her assignment with The X-Files away from her parents because part of this was hard for her to believe. She saw evidence of abductions in her first case with The X-Files, but she was able to find other explanations for that evidence. She saw someone who could stretch their form until they could fit in the smallest of spaces, but was able to rationalize that away as a genetic mutation. But this case with Boggs was different. Sure, he could have known information about her simply because she was Mulder’s partner...But would he have had access to that much information about her while he was in jail? And how would he have known the song that played at her parent’s wedding? It’s not like that fact was published in the newspapers, and there was little chance that Boggs had seen the one video tape from their wedding day. 

Regardless of her belief in Boggs’ psychic ability, Scully didn’t need him to tell her what her father’s message was for her:

He was proud of her.

He may not have said it with words, and he may have been prompted by her mother to ask her about her job (her mother didn’t think Scully saw her prompt her father to ask, but she did, after all she was trained to notice these things), but he was still proud.

And Scully was proud of her job too, even if it was mysterious to her at times. She was helping solve previously unsolvable cases, saving lives and catching criminals in the process.

She sighed as she leaned her head against Mulder, where he had fallen asleep during her silence.

This was exactly where she needed to be in life. She didn't know why it mattered now, and she may never know the extent that her position on The X-Files actually mattered to anyone, but just being here right now was enough.

She was proud of her accomplishments and she was pretty sure—no, she was absolutely certain—that her father died proud of her, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think (good and bad). This series is different from how I normally write because it’s more free-flowing and more focused on individual plot points instead of overarching themes, so if anything seems completely off, please let me know.
> 
> You can contact me on here or at: https://medley-of-my-trans-life.tumblr.com/


End file.
